• What is your metaphor for God? Do you think of God as a father? a friend? a rock? the color purple? What image makes sense for you when you think about God?
• Where does your soul find rest?
• Where does God lead you?
• What are you afraid of?
• How does God comfort and protect you?
• How does God bless you?

Then give participants a paper with lots of space between the following lines:
The Lord is [blank]
I shall not want.
God makes me [blank]
God leads me [blank]
God restores my soul.
God leads me in paths of righteousness for God’s name’s sake.
Yea though I walk [blank]
I will fear no evil, for You are with me.
Your [blank] comfort me.
You [blank]
You anoint my head with oil.
My cup runs over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life
and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

Each blank corresponds with an answer to the question prompts in order. Give participants some time to craft their psalm. Invite people to share aloud. If you try this with your faith community, let us know how it turns out!

Read it online with illustrations by Mike Jackson

Illustrations originally presented as slides
projected during a live reading
at Easter at Avalon
April 8, 2007

There was not long ago or far away
A town where children played and sang all day
And once their folks had tucked them in at night
The kids hid under covers in their fright
Except one little lady, strong and feral
A wild, precocious child by name of Carol
Who’d lie in silence, with her eyes tight closed
And wait till all the town serenely dozed

Then up she’d jump and loudly she’d declare
“It takes more than the dark to get me scared!”
Outside her window, an old Oak-tree grew
Perhaps this tree’s who she was speaking to
Regardless, she continued “Oh well sure
I’m frightened when the morning traffic roars
The hairs on my young neck do stand on ender
When mom throws fresh tomatoes in the blender
And last week on a class trip to the zoo
The tongue of a giraffe, it scared me too
There’s causes for concern both far and near
But one thing that I’ll never, ever fear…”

“Is England! Yeah, they once were some great power
But now are ‘bout as fearful as a flower
Their royal navy bullied the whole world
Now they can’t frighten this six year old girl!
I fear the toxic waste dumped in the sea
I fear the slash and burn of every tree
I fear the monsters underneath my bed
I fear the spirits mumbling in my head
I fear the pit-bull readying to pounce
But I do not fear England – not one ounce”

And who’d have thought these words from little Carol
Would prove to be old England’s greatest Peril?
To bring long dead King Arthur back to sense
As sworn to rise again in her defense
He looked around, asked “What’s the matter, son?
That I’m so summoned back from Avalon?
Where blossoms bloom and apples sweetly grow
And women are all true, unlike that—” “Whoa!”
Young Carol stopped him speaking “quiet please!
If Mom and Dad hear, they’ll call the police!
And just in case your vision’s gone all shady –
I’m no-one’s son, ‘cause I’m a little lady.”

“But tell me, girl, have Saxons stormed my lands?
And smudged the Grail with their unwash-ed hands?
I’ll swing Excalibur to smash their ranks
I’ll rend their necks, their elbows and their shanks.
But lo, I see no horror in your eyes”
“No, I don’t fear you prehistoric guys.”
She answered “Maybe once you fought so greatly
But tell me, Arthur, what have you done lately?”
So Arthur pondered this and said at last
“You’re right. All my great deeds are in the past.”

Just then the window opened and they stared
The oak was gone – there stood a lady fair!
And Carol asked “Are you his faithful bride?”
“No, that’s my sister Morgan,” Arthur sighed.
“Morgana, please,” the lady said “It’s true
I am his sister, and have powers too
I may not be a mighty patriarch
With lordly conquest legends to impart
But no less than this king’s great deeds in worth
For mine, you see, are powers of the earth
Each blade of grass that reaches for the sun
Each river that leaves flowers where it runs
All animals and insects on parade
Are part of this same earth from which they’re made
Though men don’t praise my glory by the sword
When men are gone, the Earth will still endure.”

“That’s cool!” said Carol “Why’ve I never heard?”
“We girls don’t get the credit we deserve.”
“Well thank you, Morgan, but that does not help,”
King Arthur sighed “I need to scare this whelp.”
But Carol answered “put away your sword
I understand, this world needs mighty lords
To be inspired with righteousness and truth
But if the planet’s ruined Рwhat’s the use?
Perhaps combined, the two of you could grant
Some balance for mankind upon the planet.
Your power would not need to come from fear
But rather from the songs of life you’d hear.”

Young Carol woke and looked around her room
Saw her two guests had vanished with the moon
But through the window, Carol smiled to see
the sun arose and kissed the old oak tree

by Bowie Snodgrass
Written last year for a time longer ago.

That Fall, I felt like I got thrown into the ocean –
All waves, rocky cliffs, unknown chaos reigned,
But you were my great beacon of hope, my lighthouse.

When Christmas tide came, the days became short –
You turned out your light, and turned me away,
Set me out to find my own way, row my way home.

And thus the metaphor began: when no wind, row –
So I picked up my oar, enjoyed calm days, starry nights,
And made it through winter storms, waves, and hurricanes.

When the last waves washed me up, pummeled me into
The shore, I looked up and saw bright rays at night –
Realized I was on dry land and there before me, Light.

The first time I heard Mahler 3 was on July 14th at Tanglewood, MA with the James Levine conducting the Boston Symphony Orchestra. During the intermission between the first movement and the last five… I got engaged! Yup, George asked me to marry him on the hillside above Ozawa Hall. So this piece has permanent special significance to me…. especially the 6th movement, “What love tells me”.

I was struck again by the text for the 4th and 5th movements again last night and wanted to share them as my Sabbath Poems for this week. Enjoy!

IV. “What Man Tells Me”

Text: Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
Translation: Larry Rothe

O Mensch! Gib Acht!

Oh man, take heed!
What does deep midnight say?
I slept!
I have woken from a deep dream!
The world is deep—
Deeper than the day had thought!
Deep is the pain!
Joy deeper still than heart’s sorrow!
Pain says: Vanish!
Yet all joy aspires to eternity,
To deep, deep eternity.

V. “What the Angels Tell Me”

Text: from Des Knaben Wunderhorn
Translation: Larry Rothe

Three angels sang a sweet song.
It resounded throughout heaven;
They also rejoiced
That Peter was free of sin.

For as the Lord Jesus sat down at the table
And ate the evening meal with his twelve disciples,
The Lord Jesus said, “Why are you standing here?
When I look at you, you cry.”

“And shouldn’t I cry, you kind God?”
You shouldn’t cry!
“I have broken the Ten Commandments;
I go and cry bitterly.”
You shouldn’t cry!
“Oh come, and have mercy on me!”

“If you’ve broken the Ten Commandments,
Fall on your knees and pray to God.
Just love God always,
And you will have heavenly joy.”

Heavenly joy is a blessed city,
Heavenly joy, which has no end;
Heavenly joy was prepared for Peter
By Jesus, and for everyone’s salvation.

Translation copyright © 2003 by the San Francisco Symphony

Butterfly Feet, originally uploaded by estelucy.

To the Foot from its Child
by Pablo Neruda; translated by Alastair Reid

The child’s foot is not yet aware it’s a foot,
and would like to be a butterfly or an apple.

But in time, stones and bits of glass,
streets, ladders,
and the paths in the rough earth
go on teaching the foot that it cannot fly,
cannot be a fruit bulging on the branch.
Then, the child’s foot
is defeated, falls
in the battle,
is a prisoner
condemned to live in a shoe.

Bit by bit, in that dark,
it grows to know the world in its own way,
out of touch with its fellow, enclosed,
feeling out life like a blind man.

These soft nails
of quartz, bunched together,
grow hard, and change themselves
into opaque substance, hard as horn,
and the tiny, petalled toes of the child
grow bunched and out of trim,
take on the form of eyeless reptiles
with triangular heads, like worms.
Later, they grow calloused
and are covered
with the faint volcanoes of death,
a coarsening hard to accept.

But this blind thing walks
without respite, never stopping
for hour after hour,
the one foot, the other,
now the man’s,
now the woman’s,
up above,
down below,
through fields, mines,
markets and ministries,
backwards,
far afield, inward,
forward,
this foot toils in its shoe,
scarcely taking time
to bare itself in love or sleep;
it walks, they walk,
until the whole man chooses to stop.

And then it descended
underground, unaware,
for there, everything, everything was dark.
It never knew it had ceased to be a foot
or if they were burying it so that it could fly
or so that it could become
an apple.

* One of my favorite poems in high school, from a volume I had (with Spanish on one side and English on the other) called A New Decade (Poems 1958-1967)

El pie desde su ni?±o
by Pablo Neruda

El pie del ni?±o a??n no sabe que es pie,
y quiere ser mariposa o manzana.

Pero luego los vidrios y las piedras,
las calles, las escaleras,
y los caminos de la tierra dura
van ense?±ando al pie que no puede volar,
que no puede ser fruto redondo en una rama.
El pie del ni?±o entonces
fue derrotado, cay?? en la batalla,
fue prisionero, condenado a vivir en un zapato.
Poco a poco sin luz fue conociendo el mundo
a su manera,
sin conocer el otro pie, encerrado,
explorando la vida como un ciego.
Aquellas suaves u?±as de cuarzo, de racimo,
se endurecieron, se mudaron
en opaca sustancia, en cuerno duro,
y los peque?±os p?©talos del ni?±o
se aplastaron, se desequilibraron,
tomaron formas de reptil sin ojos,
cabezas triangulares de gusano.
Y luego encallecieron, se cubrieron
con m??nimos volcanes de la muerte,
inaceptables endurecimientos.

Pero este ciego anduvo sin tregua, sin parar
hora tras hora, el pie y el otro pie,
ahora de hombre o de mujer,
arriba, abajo, por los campos, las minas,
los almacenes y los ministerios,
atr?°s, afuera, adentro, adelante,
este pie trabaj?? con su zapato,
apenas tuvo tiempo de estar desnudo
en el amor o el sue?±o, camin??,
caminaron hasta que el hombre entero se detuvo.
Y entonces a la tierra baj?? y no supo nada,
porque all?? todo y todo estaba oscuro,
no supo que hab??a dejado de ser pie,
si lo enterraban para que volara
o para que pudiera ser manzana.

The small plot of ground
on which you were born
cannot be expected

to stay forever
the same.
Earth changes,
and home becomes different
places.

You took flesh
from clay
but the clay
did not come
from just one place.

To feel alive,
important, and safe,
know your own waters
and hills, but know
more

You have stars in your bones
and oceans
in blood.

You have opposing
terrain in each eye
you belong to the land
and sky of your first cry,
you belong to infinity.

* from Earth Prayers, Edited by Elizabeth Roberts

* We had this book when I was growing up and I read this poem at a DEC hearing in Farmersville, New York (40 miles from where I grew up) regarding the proposed largest landfill in the Northeast. That hearing happened in March 1994. The has fight continued for more than ten years and now the dump is all but defeated!

* I saw this poem quoted today and googled the author, only to realize that she is an Episcopal priest who was part of the Philadelphia Eleven, the first crop of women “irregularly” ordained in the Episcopal Church in 1974, inlcuding Carter Hayard and Jeanette Piccard, whom we discussed at Transmission last night.

Featuring Genesis 2:24 and 3:24, JPS trans

ah my

yes

the fine art

of creation

let it be so bountiful!

into dry dust, breathe breath

god made the food garden

     a river with four branches

     and declared that from

hence, a man leaves his father

and mother and clings to his wife

so that they become one flesh

the mother of all the living

listened for good and evil

     ate apple after serpent

     and caused the couple

to be expelled outside Eden where

the cherubim and the fiery ever-turning

sword wait to guard the way to the tree of life

Mad God, mad thought
Take me for a walk
Stalk me. Made God,
Wake me with your words.
Believe in what I said

Just Shadows
Shadows on sheets
Grass, seed . . .

Push my anguish down―
Coffee, smokes & creams―
Tongue-dainties
To scare compulsion away
Compulsion to die

–
from The Quietist (1992)

I had a natural passion for fine clothes, excellent food, and
lively conversation about all matters that concern
the heart still alive. And even a passion
about my own
looks.

Vanities: they do not exist.

Have you ever walked across a stream stepping on
rocks so not to spoil a pair of shoes?

All we can touch, swallow, or say
aids in our crossing to God
and helps unveil the
soul.

Life smooths us, rounds, perfects, as does the river the stone,
and there is no place our Beloved is not flowing
though the current’s force you
may not always
like.

Our passions help to lift us.

I loved what I could love until I held God,
for then—all things—every world
disappeared.

* From Daniel Ladinsky’s Love Poems from God: Twelve Sacred Voices from the East and West (New York: Penguin Compass, 2002), page 292.
* Read at May 8 Graduation Party / House Blessing Ritual for Katharine Lee
* More about St. Theresa of Avila (1515-1582)

I’m looking for one more Bible selection to go with the four readings below (from the Hebrew Bible a plus). these will be part of our Wed nite rite, whose working title is: How do we know God loves us?

i’m also looking for some tunes to put on a soundtrack while people are exploring the stations. with lyrics or without.

thanks!

• Matthew 22:34-40
• Anne Carson, “My Religion”
• Hafiz, “The Sun Never Says”
• Peter Rollins, from How (Not) to Speak of God

Matthew 22:34-40

Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question:

“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Jesus replied: ” ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

Anne Carson, “My Religion”

My religion makes no sense
and does not help me
therefore I pursue it.

When we see
how simple it would have been
we will thrash ourselves.

I had a vision
of all the people in the world
who are searching for God

massed in a room
on one side
of a partition

that looks
from the other side
(God’s side)

transparent
but we are blind.
Our gestures are blind.

Our blind gestures continue
for some time until finally
from somewhere

on the other side of the partition there we are
looking back at them.
It is far too late.

We see how brokenly
how warily
how ill

our blind gestures
parodied
what God really wanted

(some simple thing).
The thought of it
(this simple thing)

is like a creature
let loose in a room
and battering

to get out.
It batters my soul
with its rifle butt.

Hafiz, “The Sun Never Says”

Even
After
All this time

The sun never says to the earth,

“You owe
Me.”

Look
What happens
With a love like that,
It lights the
Whole
Sky.

Peter Rollins, from How (Not) to Speak of God

Rather than desire being fulfilled in the presence of God, religious desire is born there. In short, a true spiritual seeking can be understood as the ultimate sign that one already has that which one seeks, or rather, that one is already grasped by that that which one seeks to grasp. Consequently, a genuine seeking after God is evidence of having found. Of course, much desire that appears to seek after God is nothing of the sort. For instance, to seek God for eternal life is to seek eternal life, while to seek God for a meaningful existence is to seek a meaningful existence. A true seeking after God results from an experience of God which one falls in love with for no reason other than finding God irresistibly lovable. In this way the lovers of God are the ones who are most passionately in search of God.

1. Matthew 22:34-40 (NIV) BibleGateway.com
2. “My Religion,” from Anne Carson, Glass, Irony and God (New York: New Directions Books, 1992)
3. “The Sun Never Says,” from Hafiz, trans. Daniel Ladinsky, The Gift (New York: Penguin Compass, 1999)
4. Peter Rollins, How (Not) To Speak of God (Brewster, MA: Paraclete Press, 2006), 50.